God makes us pure saints by planting us back in the earth we imagined we needed to escape.
Salvation is not merely to be put in “safety” but to be put into Christ.
Bringing your family to church to receive “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42) in Word and Sacrament honors and pleases God.

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Death is never natural. Death is abnormal. Death is not human. Death is the enemy.
When we say, “I’ve screwed up big time. I’ve betrayed my spouse, my family, my friends. I’ve hurt lots of people,” we don’t need to hear, “Yes, you have. You need to make that right, learn to walk the talk, and act like a Christian next time."
This is why a Christian must keep learning to forget himself so long as he lives.
Being a run-of-the-mill, mediocre parent is a gift to your children. It models for them what life is all about: the little things, the overlooked things, the minuscule elements of daily life that—in various ways—are God’s gifts to us.
That image of the “godly woman” haunted me from examples in the Bible of honorable women.
She heard it before, but looking around she struggles to see how it matters.
“My Old Man” is the story of a single father, a grossly flawed character, told through the eyes of his son who can’t help but love him.
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
Those clinging to God in Christ can be assured that it’s all clean.
Yet, just as the Jews had two choices, true God or no God, the Christian has the same, true Jesus or no Jesus.
If affairs always begin by believing lies, then repentance always begins by believing the truth: the truth that you are in the wrong, the truth that you have a God who loves you in Jesus Christ, and the truth that he and he alone can save you not only from adultery but from every sin that seeks to lead you down the path of destruction.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.